GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 652839
Warn users when Local Directory Sync is pointed to a dropbox path
Last modified: 2017-07-31 12:44:06 UTC
> > How about adding a warning to the Folder Sync plugin if it finds "Dropbox" > > in the sync path? Link to a wiki page or something with a warning about > > data loss and instructions on moving the tomboy notes themselves to DB > > instead and using the note watcher plugin. > > Good idea! Can you file a bug for this? > > Thanks, > Sandy
Created attachment 190339 [details] [review] Searches the partent folder and sub folders for .dropbox and warns the user This patch searches the specified path for a .dropbox file by taking the sync path, getting the parent folder and searching it and all sub folders for the .dropbox file. It doesn't make since I don't think to search the whole parent path, but this will get most scenarios. I could change the search and search each parent if the team thinks this is required.
I don't think that will work on Windows, there isn't a .dropbox folder I can see. Also, isn't .Dropbox always in ~? If I move my dropbox folder to /bigpartion/dropbox, will that method work on Linux? In Windows, the Dropbox folder must be named "My Dropbox", not sure if it can be renamed on Linux or not. If not, doing a case insensitive search for "dropbox" in the sync path should work. Also, maybe this is too complicated and prone to errors (what if Dropbox lets Windows users change the folder name eventually). This might help: http://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=20156&replies=12 But note caution by DB staff. Maybe it would be best to simply put a warning text in the folder sync area that links out to more documentation? > "Don't sync w/ Dropbox or similiar. More details." That way, no Dropbox detection magic needs to be done.
You right, I don't see the .Dropbox file in Windows. (oops) You can put the Dropbox folder anywhere and the patch that I proposed would handle that. As long as we can decode the path in the host.db (as DB support says we could) then that method should be the most solid. ( haven't found a host.db on my Windows box though) I guess it depends on the stands that Tomboy wants to take. Prevent or warn the user. Warning the user should be easier.
I would prefer that we not get in the habit of handling tons of corner cases like this. I think that some documentation and a generalized warning should be sufficient, no?
> I think that some documentation and a generalized warning should be sufficient, no? Even though I made the original suggestion, I now think this is the better approach. I would just want to see that warning in the Synchronization GUI and linked to the documentation that gives a fuller explanation and workaround (i.e. putting the notes themselves in DB).
OK I will take a jab at that.
*** Bug 606735 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Hi Jared, could you please elaborate on this one, why Dropbox is harmful for Tomboy notes? I can't seem to find anything on this using google (i.e. any mail list archives or user complaints) - on the contrary there are numerous articles on how to set up Tomboy to use Dropbox for syncing. I currently use Dropbox as a sync solution, in a very simple setup though - just two endpoints and one user. I'd be willing to put some effort into fixing or enhancing Tomboy if that could make Dropbox support robust, so I'd really like to understand what was wrong and why this record has appeared.
Ok, I should have read the duplicate first - that scheds some light, but Sandy has never mentioned the actual reason, only stated that using Dropbox "bare" (without NoteDirectoryWatcher) is an unsupported case, but I wonder why exactly.
You are asking me to remember back many years!! :) I think it's because it didn't handle conflicts and I think this could happen if you have more than one instance of Tomboy running. I think the scenario could be if two instances were offline at the same time and made changes to notes, maybe only to the same note, then you could have problems. If Note changes could actually use a merge algorithm, then it might not be an issue, but we are not to that point.
Thanks! :) That generally agrees with what I'm gathering from reading other records related to this one. I'll do some research to see if there's anything we could do without doing any major reworks. I haven't also yet looked into what Note Directory Watcher brings in this context, but I definitely should.
The Tomboy team has moved from GNOME Bugzilla to GitHub for bug reports and feature requests: https://github.com/tomboy-notes/tomboy/issues/ Closing this report as NOTGNOME as part of Bugzilla Housekeeping (bug 781054) to keep tasks in one place. Please feel free to transfer this task to GitHub if this task is still valid in a recent Tomboy version. We are sorry for the inconvenience.